2016 Open Nation: Large Scale Innovation Culture

Cisco

In big tech companies, innovation used to be the sole domain of Engineering or Research & Development. Now, we realize that the most disruptive innovation can come from anywhere. We also know that highly diverse teams with cross-functional skill sets deliver the most valuable and game-changing outcomes. At Cisco, we leveraged these new paradigms to start a companywide grassroots movement that ignited an innovation disruption across all functions, grade levels and geographies at the same time.

The ongoing Innovate Everywhere Challenge empowers all 72,000 employees in more than 120 countries to tap into their passions, form teams, take risks and develop disruptive solutions for our customers. In turn, the company invests heavily in Lean Startup training, resources, mentoring and funding throughout the innovation journey. Organizations of any size in any industry can apply lessons learned from this innovation disruption to transform into a culture of innovation that turn employees into entrepreneurs.